Bainbridge Island Review

New senior facility isn’t much to look at | LETTER TO THE EDITOR

June 3, 2013 · Updated 8:56 AM Comments

To the editor:

While almost the whole Island has been emotionally and otherwise under the spell of the so-called Shoreline Master Program that has divided so much of the community, something else seemingly sneaked into the scenery that has contributed to what I call the “uglification” of Bainbridge Island. It is the structure nearing completion at the intersection of New Brooklyn and Madison on the grounds of what used to be beautiful sweeping lawns of a church.

It’s intended, by all the signage, to be a senior residence specializing in something called Memory Care.

No one can be insensitive to the need for a variety of special facilities to help care for those advancing in age and besieged with certain age-related afflictions. Any of us can eventually fall prey to such concerns.

On the other hand, those who invest private for-profit facilities have an obligation to ensure that what they erect has some measure of attractiveness and relationship to the surroundings.

What has been moving swiftly while the city council and others clamor to maintain the safety and physical beauty of the Island, this newest nondescript construction must have slipped smoothly without much checking as to why it looks as it does, sits where it does across the street from a high school and elementary school.

If it is too late to insist we maintain some minimal measure of respect for our traditional architectural environment, then let’s say so but suggest whoever approved both the site and awful building at Madison and New Brooklyn should really be doing something else.